


"I hate you"

by Lilac_02



Category: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Anger, Angst, Crying, F/M, Friendship/Love, Gore, Heavy Angst, Hurt, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, Love, Major Character Injury, Mild Gore, Mipha's healing touch, One-Sided Attraction, Pre-Breath of the Wild, Pre-Calamity Ganon, Unrequited Love, Urbosa is a mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-07-19
Packaged: 2020-07-08 05:39:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19864396
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilac_02/pseuds/Lilac_02
Summary: Zelda gets angry with Link and tells him that she hates him. When she goes to apologize, she finds him badly injured, and she doesn't know what she'll do if she loses him.





	"I hate you"

**Author's Note:**

> Warning for heavy angst and sadness for this. There's also a slight description of gory/bloody stuff but it's not too bad. Hope you guys enjoy!

“Just leave,” Zelda said, turning away from the knight and collapsing into a chair. “I don’t want you here anymore, don’t you understand?”  
The knight, Link, shuffled his feet but stayed put. Of course this wasn’t his fault- the princess knew that. Her father had appointed him, and insisted that he be with her at all times. But her father wasn’t here. All she wanted was to be alone, to read quietly. Although Link was as quiet as possible, Zelda could still feel his presence, and she hated it.   
“Knight, did you hear me? I said leave.”  
“Yes, Princess,” the knight said with a nod. He stepped back, into the doorway of the library, but did not exit. Zelda felt like crying or yelling at him, she wasn’t sure which. So she stood, and looked into those bright blue eyes of his- those shining, beautiful eyes.   
“Get away from me,” she said quietly. If someone spent as much time around the princess as Link did, they would know that this type of quiet anger was the most dangerous. And Zelda was angry.  
The problem was, she didn’t know exactly what she was angry at. She was angry that Link had been appointed as her knight, and that he had to follow her everywhere. She was angry that her father thought she couldn’t take care of herself. And most importantly, she was angry at herself for falling hopelessly in love with this knight.   
Link took another step back. He knew this anger, and he wanted to stay away from Zelda as much as she wanted him away. But he couldn’t; that was the king’s orders.   
“Just get away from me,” Zelda said, her voice rising with every word. “Leave me alone! I hate you!”   
With that final exclamation, she slammed her book down on the table, and Link stumbled backward. He then left the room.   
Once again, Princess Zelda fell into the chair, knowing better than anyone that she didn’t hate her knight. She didn’t hate him at all. She was just upset that he wasn’t hers. 

An hour later, Zelda had finished her book, and calmed down enough that she figured she would go and find her knight to apologize. She exited the library and hurried to the courtyard in front of the castle, where she found all four champions standing, looking very upset.   
“What’s wrong?” she asked, hurrying up to them. “Urbosa? Mipha- what is it?”  
“You haven’t heard?” Revali asked, raising an eyebrow.   
“Heard what?”  
“Master Link… he had a run-in with a lynel,” Mipha said sadly. “The doctors…” she let out a sob. “The doctors say that he barely has a chance of surviving through the night.” She sniffed, then began to cry quietly.   
“No,” Zelda said in a hushed voice. “Not Link… not now.”  
He couldn’t die. Not before he knew her true feelings for him, and especially not when her last words to him would have been “I hate you”.   
“Did you try your healing touch?” Zelda asked Mipha.   
The Zora nodded her head, and through hiccuping sobs, said, “I can only do so much, Princess.”  
“Where is he?” Zelda asked the group.   
“He’s with the royal doctors in the medical lab,” Urbosa told her, “But I wouldn’t guess he’s in any state to talk.”   
“Thank you,” she said, and reached out to squeeze Mipha’s hand before turning and running back into the castle, tears streaming down her face. 

“Link!” she cried, knocking the door open to the medical lab. The sight she saw was awful. There were three doctors surrounding a bed in the middle of the room, one with a strangely colored elixir in her hand. On the bed was her knight. The skin on half of his face was ripped off, and blood was pouring out of a wound in his left shoulder, which one of the doctors was attempting to bandage. There was a gaping wound on his chest, and both his legs were wrapped in bandages. Zelda didn’t want to know what it looked like underneath.   
“Princess,” said the doctor holding the elixir, and stood up to bow. Zelda shook her head and held up a hand.  
“How is he?”  
“He’s had a 40% blood loss,” the doctor explained. She held out the elixir, which Zelda now realized was blood. “We’re trying to do an emergency blood transfusion, but we need to stop the bleeding first.”  
“Is there any way I can help?”   
“No, I’m afraid not, Princess,” she said. “I’m sorry, we’re doing everything we can.”  
“Please,” she choked out, “He can’t die.”  
“I understand, Princess,” the doctor said. “We really are trying our best.”  
“Then try harder,” Zelda said, setting her face into a determined expression. “I expect him to be returned to me alive.”  
“Yes, ma’am,” the doctor said nervously, and turned back to her work. 

Zelda watched for a few minutes as the doctors worked. After a little while- Zelda lost track of time- another guard descended the steps into the lab and gently touched her shoulder. “Princess,” he said.   
She silently followed him, and he led her to a guest bedroom near the lab, where she found Urbosa sitting on the bed.   
The Gerudo warrior stood when the two of them entered. “Thank you,” she said to the guard, who nodded and left. She then turned to Zelda, sat back on the bed, and patted the empty space beside her. “Sit.”  
The princess did so. She sat, then fell into Urbosa’s open arms, sobbing.   
“It’s always hard to lose someone close to you,” she said.  
“He isn’t dead yet,” Zelda said firmly. “They could still save him.”  
“Princess… I…” Urbosa trailed off, not saying what Zelda knew she was about to. Her knight was as good as dead. Those blue eyes may never shine again, and that smile might no longer cross those soft lips when Zelda said something funny. This only made the princess sob harder.   
“Lady Urbosa, I can’t lose him,” she said. She sat up and looked straight into the light green eyes of the Gerudo woman. “I’m in love with him.”  
“I know,” came the simple reply.  
“You… what?”  
“I know,” Urbosa repeated. “I know that you love him. I see the look in your eyes when he wins a battle. I see the smile you give him, and the way your face lights up when he returns it. I’ve watched you change from hating him to loving him. I’ve known since before you have, Princess. And I’m so sorry.”  
“The last conversation I had with him, I told him to leave. I was annoyed, Urbosa, and I suppose I was a bit angry. And I said that I hated him.”  
“Oh, Princess,” the warrior said, taking Zelda in her arms again, “He knows that you don’t hate him. In fact… the reason that he was going to fight that terrible creature was to get you a Lynel hoof; he knew you’d wanted one for a long time.”  
“Did he…”  
“A guard asked him where he was going, and he said that he was going to get a lynel hoof for the princess,” Urbosa explained in her soothing, slow voice.   
A wave of emotions rushed over the princess. Shock, anger, and mostly sadness. Link had been injured because of her. How was she supposed to deal with that information? Her body decided for her, as moments later, she managed to cry herself to sleep in the Gerudo champion’s arms. 

Zelda awoke an hour later to find the bed empty and the sky growing darker. She sat up slowly and yawned, then made her way down to the courtyard.   
On her way there, she heard her name being called. She turned to find Mipha standing there, tears filling her eyes.   
“Mipha?”  
“Princess… I’m so sorry…”   
Zelda knew immediately what Mipha meant, but she wouldn’t allow herself to believe it. Mipha was wrong. She had to be. Maybe someone had misinformed her, or Link was just sleeping. There was no way that he could be-  
“Princess, he- he didn’t make it.”   
“No,” Zelda whispered. “No, he’s still alive. He has to be.”  
Mipha shook her head, her eyes on the floor and tears falling freely. “I’m so sorry, Miss Zelda, but there was too much blood loss, and… I’m sorry…”  
Zelda turned on her heel and ran.  
The princess ran until she could run no more. She stopped, panting, and looked around to see where her feet had taken her. She found herself in Hyrule field, though it was too dark to determine exactly where. She slowly sank down into the grass, and began to sob.   
Link was dead.   
And when he died, he died with the knowledge that in that moment, no matter how she usually felt, Zelda hated him.


End file.
